


and i love her so

by twohourstraffic



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Marriage Proposal, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twohourstraffic/pseuds/twohourstraffic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shitty and Lardo get engaged during a drunk phone call. It works for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i love her so

It happens during a rare night out with the boys. Shitty, Jack, Ransom and Holster have found in recent years that their schedules were relatively incompatible, but they manage to find the occasional evening when Jack isn’t playing and Ransom doesn’t have a night shift.

They’re four beers deep when the conversation turns to Jack and Bitty’s upcoming wedding. Jack’s grinning and talking about his fiancé’s increasingly complicated plans for the reception, pulling out his phone to take notes when Ransom and Holster start chiming in with food suggestions.

Shitty is only half listening to the conversation, taking huge mouthfuls of his fifth beer, attention caught by the TV above the bar, when he hears Holster call his name with fond frustration, as if he’s been trying for a minute or two.

“Earth to Shits, you there?”

“Yeah, fuck, sorry. What were you saying?”

“Do you think you and Lards will ever get engaged?”

Shitty stares at Holster, shocked. That was honestly not what he had been expecting to hear. “I’ve never really thought about it,” he mumbles.

If he was being honest with Holster, though, he would admit that nothing was further from the truth. It’s something he’s been considering for a while. Not in concrete terms, but certainly as an option. Him and Lardo. Together. Forever. Would she say yes, if he asked? Would he say yes, if _she_ asked? He thinks he would.

And when he’s five beers in, lots of things seem like a good idea. He just has to know.

Shitty excuses himself and runs outside, leaning up against the wall of the bar. He fumbles his phone from his pocket and thumbs through until he finds Lardo’s contact. He taps her name and snorts a laugh at the contact picture – the two of them on the ice at Samwell, about twenty seconds before Lardo totally stacked it – before hitting the number.

It rings for so long that he thinks it must have gone to voice mail, before he hears Lardo’s voice, half-asleep. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe, it’s me!” he calls happily into the phone.

“What do you want, Shits?” Lardo asks. Anyone that didn’t know her well would thing that she was pissed at being phoned, probably woken up, after midnight on a Wednesday. He knows better. After years of managing a college hockey team, her patience verges on saintly. He can tell that she’s bemused, her tone gentle, her words affectionate.

“I just stepped outside for a minute. I … I wanted to talk to you.”

Lardo, as usual, will have none of his sentimentality. “Oh, come on. No, you didn’t. You’re out with the boys for the first time in a long time. You asked me to come, and when I said that I had to stay home and work on this piece, you told me that you were going to have the best time ever and that I was going to regret not coming. And then you told me I was lame but you loved me anyway, and you’d see me later, remember?”

Shitty smiles down the phone, even though he knows she can’t see it. “I did say that, that’s true.”

“I know it’s true, babe, I was there,” Lardo laughs. “So, I ask again, what’s up?”

Shitty breathes, trying to gather his thoughts. “You know how Jack and Bits have been together for ages? Like, what, five years? And how they got engaged and are planning their wedding and it’s going to be amazing? Oh my God, Lards, you should hear about Bitty’s plans for the fucking dessert buffet. Jack was telling us, it’s going to be incredible, Bitty’s refusing to trust anyone else with it and he’s going to do those mini pies and, like, s’mores and apparently they’ve been having all these arguments about the music the DJ is allowed to play, Jack says they need at least three Fleetwood Mac songs and Bitty says –”

“I feel like I can guess what Bitty’s saying, Shits. I’m sure it involved Beyoncé and how embarrassing Jack is and questioning why he never listens to Bitty’s Apple Music playlists. What did _you_ phone about?”

He’s completely lost his train of thought. When he picks it up again, his stomach drops out. “Oh. Well. We were talking about the wedding and, fuck, it sounds stupid now I try and say it but …”

“Shits, come on. You know you can tell me anything, man.”

The only way he’s going to be able to get this out is if he just blurts it. So he does. “We should get married. If you want. I mean, God, me proposing to you is a totally misogynistic piece of shit thing to do and I don’t want to assert power over you or anything, and, you know, fuck the patriarchy and the power structures that govern it, marriage is an institution that seeks to legitimise relationships that are already legitimate, but, you know, if you were interested, I feel like we could – we could be good. Long term. Forever, if you wanted.”

The silence on the other end of the line is deafening. Shitty waits a few seconds before pleading, “Lards, please say something.” Fuck his dignity at this point, to be honest.

He hears her breathe, deep and slow. At least she’s still there.

It takes another minute, but Lardo finally asks, “Did you just propose to me?”

He lets out an unsteady breath. “Maybe.”

“Oh.”

Shitty has never been good with silences. “You don’t have to say yes, of course, I mean, we’re equal in this relationship, always have been and always will be. And we were friends for so long before we got together, I honestly can’t see myself spending my life with anyone except you. Platonic soulmates forever, but then we added, you know, doing it to the equation, and I’ve never looked back. It doesn’t have to be some big ceremony, fuck, we don’t have to actually get married if you don’t want to, but I can’t see myself ever wanting anyone else, so … Oh, and think of the tax breaks! We could even –”

“Yes! God, Shitty, stop talking, babe, please. Yes, OK, let’s get married. I want to marry you if you want to marry me.”

“I do. Fuck, I do. I love you so much, it’s ridiculous. I feel like an idiot.”

“I feel the same way, loser. Now go back inside and tell the boys you just proposed to your girlfriend on the phone, and let them chirp you like you deserve. I’ll see you in the morning, if you can manage to get into bed without waking me up. Dare you.”

“I’ll do my very best. Love you, Lards.”

“Bye, Shits.”

Shitty walks back inside in a daze. Holster’s at the bar, buying another round, while Jack and Ransom are discussing Trudeau’s newest scientific funding initiative. Shitty stands to the side of the table, watching them affectionately for a moment.

“It’s the only way to get more girls into the field, man,” Jack says. “Make sure the jobs and the funding are there, and the workers will follow.”

“Yeah, but what about education? Without scholarships, this sort of stuff becomes elitist quicker than you can snap your fingers.” Ransom has clearly spent more time thinking about the topic than Jack has, and Jack knows when he’s beaten.

Holster hip-checks Shitty as he comes back to the table, and Shitty takes it as his cue to sit back down. He grabs the beer that Holster passes him, downing half of it before putting it back onto the table.

“Everything OK, dude?” Holster asks hesitantly.

Shitty takes another drink before grinning widely. “I think I just got engaged.”

* * *

Shitty shuts the front door as quietly as he can, and kicks off his shoes. Jacket and scarf on the hook, sneakers in the corner, keys on the table. It’s all so _domestic_ , in a way that he never thought he would have. Or want.

Two years as a lawyer have put a sizeable dent in his student loans. The work is soul-sucking but he’s trying to do good where he can. Another year or two of pay checks and he’ll be quitting, setting up a legal aid clinic for domestic violence victims and really changing the world for the better.

The future is so close he can taste it. And, for a while now, there’s been another person in his plans.

Lardo’s coat on the hook next to his. Her shoes thrown under the table. Her magazines on the coffee table, her brand of tea in the cupboard, her shampoo in the shower, her cacti on the window ledges, her art on the walls. Her name on the lease.

Her new work, finally complete after a week of sleepless nights, displayed proudly on the easel in the spare room. Her old room, to be precise, although fortunately they’d pulled their heads out of their asses three years ago.

Her sleeping in his bed. Their bed.

He cleans his teeth as quietly as he can, strips to his boxers and climbs in beside her. She shifts, adjusting her body to his even while asleep. They fit together, always have. They just make sense.

* * *

Shitty wakes up in the morning with a moderate hangover and a pair of eyes fixed on him.

“Hey, you,” Lardo says softly, smiling.

“Hey, yourself.”

“How were the boys?”

“Yeah, everyone was great. Holtzy was telling me about some douchebag at work who was trying to give him a hard time, but somehow he didn’t realise how tall he was. So then he just stood up at one point and towered over this dude and he almost shat himself, apparently he full on ran away, it sounds amazing. And, you know, wedding chats with Jack. Bits is so pumped, it’s amazing.”

It takes a few seconds, but he suddenly remembers the conversation he and Lardo had over the phone at the bar. His body is flooded with so many emotions that he can’t work out quite what to say. He ends up going with, “Oh my God, we got engaged last night.”

Lardo smiles, almost shyly. “Yeah, we did.” Then her eyes widen and she hastens to add, “I mean, God, if you didn’t mean it, that’s fine. But you asked and I said yes. Just – for clarity’s sake.”

“I meant it! God, please don’t take it back. Unless you want to, of course, fuck, I’d never force you to do anything you didn’t want to. But personally, I don’t want to take it back.”

“Neither do I, Shitty, God. Calm down.”

He grins at her. “We’re engaged.”

She grins back. “I know.”

Later that morning, when they’ve enjoyed the warmth of a lazy Sunday morning in bed together with the paper and coffee, Shitty runs into Lardo’s studio at full speed. “Lards, babe, I didn’t get you a ring.”

She smirks. “That’s OK. I’ve actually had one in the drawer for you for a couple of months. Was just waiting for the right opportunity, but you beat me to it.”

When he’s done showing her his appreciation, Shitty sends ring selfies to everyone in his phone.

* * *

The wedding is three weeks later. It’s in the registry office in town. There wouldn’t have been more than ten guests – mainly friends from Samwell and Lardo’s parents.

Lardo wears a yellow sundress and gladiator sandals. Shitty wears jeans and an open collared shirt, his hair flowing free.

They refuse to say the standard vows, more out of indignation than sentimentality. They eliminate the triter phrases and the stuff about possession, and add in bits about full equality and platonic relationships being legitimate and important. Shitty had been about to add something about the union being binding only as long as both parties were happy, and divorce being OK, but Lardo had caught his eye and smiled, and it had felt wrong. They _do_ try to get the registrar to leave out their first names, but she tells them that it’s illegal.

The ceremony takes fifteen minutes. Jack cries the entire time.

The reception is basically a party for the Samwell team, and is held at Jack and Bitty’s house. They eat delicious food and get drunk on Canadian beer and dance to Bitty’s WHEN TWO BEST FRIENDS GET MARRIED playlist that he’s been working on since he heard the news. It features enough Fleetwood Mac that Shitty knows Jack had a hand in it, and isn’t that the most important thing?

Speaking of Jack, Shitty manages to corner him at one point in the evening when Lardo is off talking to a couple of people from the team. Jack looks so relaxed that Shitty has a hard time remembering a time when he was constantly so tightly wound that he was one bad day from a breakdown. Thank fuck for Bitty. Thank fuck for therapy.

“Shitty, man, I’m so happy for you,” Jack says, hugging Shitty tightly. Shitty sneaks his hand into Jack’s back pocket. For once Jack doesn’t protest, so they stand, swaying, almost slow-dancing, in the middle of Jack’s living room.

“I love you, dude,” Shitty whispers in Jack’s ear. “Never forget that. Just because I’ve got someone new in my life doesn’t mean that your father and I don’t still love you.”

Jack shoves him away, but lovingly. “Thanks, man. I love you, too.”

The song changes, and Bitty comes over to steal Jack away for a dance. Shitty stands watching them for a minute before he feels a hand slip into his. He looks over to see Lardo – his _wife_ – smiling at him, and he smiles back. It’s corny and sappy and perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> come discuss shitty's first name on [tumblr](http://murrayhewitt.tumblr.com). i will never let go of my headcanon that it's brian.


End file.
